The Resurrection Pact (Winston Casey Chronicles Book 1)

by Jay Smith

  "She was dead already. You need to know that you're among the snakes and spiders. You moon over your auburn-haired whore and revel in the life's work of a dead man so you tell me who is the one really fucking a corpse."

  "What do you mean? If she killed herself and she's not part of the society, how does that tell me anything about you or this place?"

  "Acceptance. Business. Conditioning. Domination. This is the real alphabet in the training of a subject in Aeternus."

  A few seconds later, the screen went black again. At the same time, I heard footfalls at the foot of the stairs down the hall.

  The big screen burst to life with a larger than life monstrous vagina being pummeled by a massive, engorged meat hammer to a soundtrack by a poor student of Harold Faltermeyer.

  "What are you trying to tell me? Eris?"

  "Hey, Winston," Mark called down the hall like I was a child or a pet. "Who are you talking to?" He stepped into the room and stopped, impressed by the kind of friction that would light a campfire. "Oh. You need some time alone?"

  "No, it's this fuckin' A.I." I fumbled with the remote on the foot of the bed. It refused to work.

  He looked doubtful. "Right. I never order the adult PPV, either."

  I hit the POWER button on the set and the room fell silent. "What did Reilly have to say?"

  "Oh, just words. He's nothing without King's cock in his mouth. He's worried more about losing his seat at the table than his boss. I'm going to let him sweat and then offer him something he wants personally to back off. Don't worry."

  "You haven't given me cause to worry. That should make me worry. Do I have to turn anything over?"

  He took a breath. "Have you considered the offer of selling everything off to Alan? 10 cents on the dollar is still 10 more than nothing."

  "How do you know about that?"

  "Full disclosure. I need to know things to keep you out of trouble."

  "If you're my legal representative, I need you to provide me full disclosure. What does he want?"

  "Winston, when important people die they are still worth money. The value of King Kline's estate is about to drop by about a lot because he was involved in sex trafficking. He used our organization to mask transportation of minors and our facilities, including this one, to engage in some sick acts with them. He shot himself because my team – including your old mate Grant Parker – found evidence of this and he knew it was all over. So."

  "This is something you've gone to the police about, right? The Feds?"

  Mark didn't answer. He walked the inside of the room, considering each of the hanging flogs and paddles like visiting an art museum. "Our old friend Denny, who I'm sure shared a few hairless innocents with King, wants to buy himself a piece of Aeternus with what he thinks are incriminating documents. If not, he promised to burn it all down. You haven't gone through Parker's inventories, yet, I gather."

  "Nope."

  "hm." He lingered on the thick, studded cricket bat wrapped in leather.

  "So why is Denny asking me and not a federal agent?"

  "They run their own investigation. Right now, they're looking at King and King's estate is a big ball of red tape."

  "So this accusation of trafficking: it hasn't gone public."

  "That's my point, Winston. Once either of us go public, everyone must show his or her cards. Corporate secrets, the weird sex dungeons, the random drug suicide like that Carla whatshername…"

  "Baron."

  "Yeah, her. You know, if you don't want to get involved you can sell off your shares and sign an affidavit that you never reviewed the contents of the inventories. A hundred seventy-five K is a good week in Vegas."

  What would Parker do? What would Parker do? Cui Bono? Who benefits? Why would this guy want to protect me? Why wouldn't he want me to be in the position to take the heat? Never trust a corporate attorney to protect anyone but the entity signing the check.

  "What if I sold it to Dennis? He's a member, right?"

  Once he realized I might very well be serious, Mark lost his business smile. "Mate, uh. You –ah- don't want to do that."

  "No, I don't, but your reaction makes me curious why."

  "Once you're in, you're in. King Kline is about to become the poster villain for rich, white perverts who exploit the legal profession for their gratification and I guarantee you that Dennis will destroy Grant Parker to protect King. He sure as shit will crush you. Don't let his dopey old man routine fool you. What he's put his dick inside would make Caligula call for sanity and he is a crafty man when it comes to concealing his crimes inside the guilt of others. The more nobodies he can ruin with accusations and empty charges, the stronger his case looks. He might even tie you into it after the fact if it helps him."

  I stood up and folded my arms. Mark had moved on to a leather whip with metal barbs tied into the lash. He admired the workmanship. He still wouldn't look at me.

  "I have nothing to do with it."

  "Of course," he replied, casually as if the fact meant nothing to him. "You don't get the scale of what's happening here, Winston."

  "Because you're being evasive and vague. Do I need to consult an outside attorney?"

  "You can't. You have a non-disclosure agreement."

  "That clause is unenforceable if it conflicts with my rights or a legal obligation. At the very least we would have to go to court to make that determination. And as much as you're implying that I'm nobody to you, it feels like I am in an important position. Even if you squash me like a bug I will still make a huge, wet mess for you to deal with."

  He broke out his tension-breaking smile. "Winston. Why are we fighting? We're supposed to be bros here. You got a good thing. Protect it."

  "What, by selling? Which pitch are you going to stick with, Mark?"

  His naked contempt at that question signaled his capitulation. He put up his hands. "I'll leave you alone for spank time." He went for the door, passing Parker's ghost as he marched.

  I stopped when I noticed Parker's hollow, translucent shell in the corner of the room, half buried in shadow. He looked trapped, his face a blur against the gun metal gray stone. His shredded flesh and uniform looked to be part of a solid form, drained of color. I didn't smell the familiar sulfur or taste the ash on my tongue. At the edge of the shadow, dozens of tiny hands clutched his ethereal shape. He said nothing. The Shadow spread like cooling lava, erasing him from the room. His ghost did not move except to slide into the darkness.

  Follow us, Winston. A whisper kissed my ear. Follow us into the shadows. You feel us calling deep in your bones.

  The television turned itself on again, startling me. The AETERNUS logo bounced around the screen in silence. When I turned back toward Parker, he was gone.

  ~

  "Lord Wynncase?"

  "Yes?"

  "Will you be staying overnight?"

  "Who's asking?"

  "This is Eris."

  As weird as this shit could be, being around the evidence seemed to be a better option than spending the night at a bar and stumbling back to a lonely hotel room. "Eris. How do I know it is you?"

  "Because I stated my identity."

  "Is it possible for your interface to be disabled remotely?"

  "Yes."

  "Eris."

  "Yes, Lord Wynncase?"

  "Can you replay the end our last conversation?"

  "I can. Reviewing the last minute, I said: 'You do not have permission to monitor public area conversations.' You posed a non-sequitur transition or non-specific question. I asked you to clarify. You answered by asking 'Do some members have permission to monitor public area conversations?' and I answered in the affirmative. You asked 'Is someone listening to the parlor right now?' My answer suspended."

  "Why?"

  "Super User account access suspended my interface until it was restored two minutes ago."

  "Who was the Super User?"

  "I do not have that information."

  "Was the Super User monitoring
me prior to overriding you?"

  "You are not authorized for that information."

  If not for hours playing Zork as a kid I would have been deterred. But I learned much from text adventure games. "Was the account monitoring me the same account that cut into our conversation?"

  "Yes."

  Ooh. Progress. "Where from?"

  "I do not understand, Lord Wynncase."

  "Where…" I had to think about how to word the question. "…was I monitored from in the network?"

  "Throughout the house."

  That wasn't what I wanted. "Track signal origin of Super User."

  A few seconds went by when I prepared myself for a non-answer. Finally, Eris replied, "Las Vegas. The Central Information Technology Matrix."

  That made perfect sense. "Is the IP address monitoring me the same as the one used by the head of Information Technology?"

  "No."

  I was disappointed for a moment. Then I asked, "Who uses the Super User IP address and has permission to override Safe House communications?"

  "Sir Yonder Grace uses multiple IP sources, one of which was identical to the IP monitoring you."

  "Who the fuck is Yonder Grace?"

  "Sir Yonder Grace is the Executive in Charge of Internet Security for Aeternus Online."

  I made a note to look him up later.

  The layout of the Safe House spanned three buildings. The adjoining townhouse at 3017 and the funeral parlor made up a single, flowing layout divided by secret doors.

  I pressed the wall and it sank about an inch before the latch disengaged. The wall pushed against my hand and opened on an interior hinge revealing the broken firewall dividing the row home from the funeral parlor. The passage opened wide, stopping on the worn corner of the night stand.

  A faint stench of bleach and musty old wood curled in the air from the darkness beyond the doorway. The mixture of scents that reminded me of being backstage at an old theater. I pointed the screen of my Magic Book at the darkness and activated the flashlight app. I entered the Funeral Parlor.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Everything the Dungeon Room wanted to be, the room beyond achieved and went beyond into a horror show of dark imagery. The bare brick firewall extended to the front of the funeral home. The interior had been torn up but not cleared out. A dividing wall that once separated two offices remained in pieces of broken 2x4s hanging from a non-load bearing framework or in a pile off to the far wall between the two office doors. Someone painted a silver pentagram over the plank blocking the front window.

  Three bent and battered folding chairs lay scattered around on the floor looking like they were used in a fight like swords. The floor was made of interlocking gray foam blocks like the floor of a dojo or a child's play area.

  The vibe I felt from the place reminded me of the private afterparty in Vegas, the one where I'd lost my mind. The floor silenced my footsteps across the floor but my first step into the hall on the other side created a low, loud groan which carried through the entire house. The open hallway wrapped around a large open space over a central parlor two stories below. The thin slots in the upper level windows allowed piercing rays of sunshine into the gloom, revealing thick clouds of dust just hanging in the air. My footstep caused a commotion around and below me. At first I thought I'd stumbled into a den of squatters, but I made out scratching noises climbing the walls and claws scraping across the naked floorboard. A trio of birds rose from perches below to hide in the rafters. They could keep a better eye on me from there, I guessed.

  The boards didn't creak nearly as hard as that one spot outside the office with the padded floor. In another life, that floor served as office space for the funeral directors and secretaries. The half-dozen rooms on that floor were empty except for one that looked like the operating room for a butcher who didn't bother to lean the blood patches and smears off his floor. An old, rusted exam table lay on its side with one metal stirrup bent in half. A wash basin and cabinet set had been attacked by either a bear or someone with a crowbar. Perhaps a bear with a crowbar who received less than helpful attention?

  ~

  The smell of animal filth was slow to reach me, but once I arrived at the landing on the far side of the floor, the aroma of urine and shit created an almost physical wall.

  There had been squatters in the parlor at one time. Around the main floor, several cheap cot frames lined a wall. None of them had bedrolls or sheets but I imagined they were kept nearby secured from the vermin. A collection of shitty chairs and a broken sofa gathered dust along with a collection of full ashtrays and empty beer bottles. The maid from next door didn't seem to extend her services to this side of the estate.

  Eris's voice echoed through the main chamber, a distant and haunting taunt. "WIN-stun. WIN-stun CA-sey. You found the secret room! WIN-stun! You unlocked a new SEE-cret. Come SEE!"

  That taunt repeated a few different times in slightly different ways as I walked back and followed the voice through to the Dungeon Room. The television was back on.

  "Who are you? Is this Huan? Alan? Who the fuck is this?"

  "Wiiiinstonnnnn…."

  Eris' voice taunted me from each corner of the Dungeon Room.

  "You're Yonder Grace."

  Eris's laugh had a metallic ring to it. "Yes. Very good. Come visit me when you return to Aeternus. We'll share stories."

  I made a list of people to find and see when I got back to Vegas. It's what Parker would do. Or maybe Parker already knew and it was waiting for me to uncover and read for myself.

  "Will you be staying the night, Lord Wynncase?"

  I didn't know if this was the AI or the imposter.

  "Call Middletown and put me on a flight back to Vegas."

  "Yes, sir. I will notify you with confirmation.

  I called Ezrin to prepare for my arrival. I needed to report Carla and figure out how to make this right.

  A few minutes later Eris confirmed she could get a pilot by midnight, but no in-flight service would be available until the morning. That was fine.

  What I needed was an ace in the hole; someone I could really trust. I drove by an office downtown rather than call or even look up her number online. Diane Walton's detective agency. She'd taken on a partner and changed the name to Walton and Warren Investigations. The office was dark. I started to type the number into my phone and stopped. I wrote it on a slip of paper and stopped off at a convenience store for some caffeine, protein, and a pre-paid cell phone.

  I ran a few other errands, careful to see who followed me or hung around while I shopped and ate. The feeling of paranoia grew as I texted Diane some details, hoping she didn't think I was crazy.

  We went wheels up at 10:30.

  PART FIVE

  Aeternus

  "I will fuck you 'til you beg me to stop or the walls of your pussy dry up and bleed."

  - The Pussy Hunter Volume XXVI,

  Sautern Sensations, Clipvid

  Chapter Nineteen

  Instead of Ezrin, I was received at the airport by a large man in a suit with so many scars on his face I thought he might have been caught in a knife storm. He wore dark shades and carried a sign reading "LORD WINCASE" [sic] just like in the movies. Either he wasn't happy about fetching someone from the airport at five thirty on a Sunday morning or just wasn't happy with life in general.

  He said nothing. He didn't open the back door of the black Lincoln at the airport or the Peppermint Casino. He did, however, take an enthusiastic interest in handling my luggage, making sure it got into the lobby to a bellman before I could be accosted by a manager about how happy he was – a total stranger – to see me back.

  The world of tourists and slot machines among candy canes and gumdrops was a welcome sight.

  "Mr. Casey!"

  A casino security officer working through a group of assorted Chinese tourists with a lumbering lurch that suggested he would rather be sprinting. I kept moving, pretending I hadn't turned almost the whole way around at the sound o
f my name. From three other directions, other security officers converged at the Quarter-Million Candyland Slot Machine just as I tried to duck around it for the parking deck exit.

  "Mr. Casey! Wait, sir," a second guard ordered. His face hung a good foot over my head. He extended a massive hand with a calloused palm resembling the sole of a marathon runner's feet. I had no choice but to stop and watch the bright colors of the casino dim into a Stonehenge of muscle-head gray.

  "Would you come with us, sir." It wasn't a question.

  The only thing more attractive than money to some people is suffering so all eyes in the casino were on me and the well-dressed goon squad, even the high rollers at the blackjack tables far across the sea of flashing slots. Only the drinks servers kept working, unimpressed.

  I was led off the floor in the middle of their mobile meat prison.

  Once the security team got me inside the room and moved aside, Detective Hinkle came into view at the far end of the interview table. He wasn't smiling, though I'm not sure if smiling was the kind of thing he learned about on the dark, dirty streets of whatever crime novel he grew up in. A red folder, fat with papers, took a spot on the table in front of him. He stood when I entered and looked me over in a disapproving way.

  "Mr. Casey. You certainly carry a lot of weight around here." He looked at the Men's Wearhouse goon squad. "Would you gentlemen give us some oxygen, please?"

  The four men left the room. Something about their movement struck me as odd. They were too eager to leave, too earnest. They weren't like the scar-faced gorilla who drove me in or the other hulking security officers I saw around the resort. Their poses around the table were tough, but in a way, they reminded me of the kind of tough you'd see choreographed into West Side Story. They reminded me of – dancers?

  "Mr. Casey?" Hinkle gestured to the seat opposite him. We sat at opposite ends of the long table. The absence of a second detective drew my attention to the mirror on the wall. I wondered which member of Aeternus' security staff and LV law enforcement watched over us.

  "I'm afraid I have some bad news, Mr. Casey."